Fishing again

Here are more pictures from our fishing trip the other night. In the car on the way home Conrad said, "I'm going to have to start liking fish so that when that's all we have, I have something to eat." Yup, that and the 7 bags of tortilla chips we have stowed.

 

 

Old fashioned ice cream parlor

 

We went to Jaxson's, which has been voted the best ice cream in the Miami area. We got a ginormous hot fudge banana split. It came with 3 grapefruit sized scoops of homemade ice cream, hot fudge, and whipped cream. Also there were some bananas in there. So it is healthy (just kidding). All for $8.25. They have something called the kitchen sink (minimum four people) that actually comes in a sink and has three scoops of ice cream per person.

 

If you're ever here, the best burgers in South Florida are in Ft. Lauderdale.

 



 

 

 

 

Movie Night

Not movie night.

Conrad and Mark went to movie afternoon on another kid boat in the harbor. They saw "Megamind" again and had popcorn. The kids on that boat are 11 and 14 so they are a little older but everyone had a great time playing tag and racing on the dock afterwards.

Spring comes early to Florida. The lizards are doing funny dances. There were many flying termites the other day (we had to close up our boat while they were out so they didn't get in and eat our wood).

Fishing and catching (!)

Conrad and Mark went fishing with their new nets and Conrad caught this fish. Not bad for his first time out. He almost caught a crab too but it was too wily. Mom and Dad were very surprised.

Conrad's first blog post

This is a blog post by Conrad, who is six, about our trip to the Miami Metro Zoo. He typed it and took some of the animal pictures himself.





Yesterday we went to the zoo. After lunch me and my brother climbed the giant rock and jumped off. It was fun. My brother said it was scary. I climbed the high part. There is even a little cave.



It was weird. The cranes legs bend forward. [Saddle bill crane.]



The zoo was fun now it was time to go.

Treasure hunting with friends

Our friends who live nearby came to visit and introduced us to geocaching. We had heard about it but had never tried it before.  We had so much fun. We took the dinghy to the jungle-park across the way and found a cache with a travel bug that we will drop off in the Bahamas. Then we found two more really creative caches along the river. We look forward to finding more as we sail around.

Pet spiders

 

We are not buying any pets right now because we are not sure what the various customs regulations will be for bringing animals into other countries. So the boys are making due with natural pets. They have captured two pet spiders named "Spidey" and "Web." The two ginormous ones in the picture are not the ones in their jar, thank goodness. They have been capturing ants to feed their pet spiders and have been researching the various types of spiders and their characteristics. Life aboard our boat is not for the squeamish.

Fun with friends

The Pirate Bar again (this time in a car instead of a dinghy). There
was a rubber ducky race in the river, across from the restaurant.
There were a few hundred duckies floating around.

Today is windy and chilly (54 degrees when we woke up). We had chocolate chip pancakes to help warm us up. I know we shouldn't complain when Chicago is only 11 degrees, but we are ready to go south. Hopefully we leave next week.

Yesterday, Conrad's best friend from 1st grade and his family came to visit us after the end of their Disney cruise. Nolan and Zoe, and Nolan's friend Kaylee who lives in Ft. Lauderdale, had a fun day with Mark and Conrad playing at the little jungle/beach across the river.  Then Matt took the kids back to the boat in the dinghy. The adults shared some coconut rum while the kids ran around the boat. It was nice to spend time with old friends.

Nolan brought a Valentine's Day card from Conrad's old class. Conrad was kind of bummed that he missed out on Valentine's Day at school so that was a good surprise. Thanks Nolan and Mrs. Madden's class!

Mark and Conrad navigating

They are not really navigating yet, but someday they will. Also, Conrad is very excited about being old enough to do watches. In preparation he is working on improving his night vision by eating more carrots. He is also making a list of the snacks he will need while on watch.

Right now, we are taking advantage of the decent internet connection to do some computer based learning.

For a video tour of the boat, hop over to www.svperry.com to see the boys talking about life aboard for kids (as Conrad says, "It's a hard life").

Gung hay fat choy (Happy New Year)

Today we made paper lanterns and dragon masks to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Mom is of Korean descent, not Chinese, but Korea also uses the same moon calendar. Most people from Korea have a regular birthday and a "moon" birthday. Then we watched "Pocahontas".

Hang 10

There are some pictures on www.svperry.com of Mark and Conrad doing some surfing. They are already saving up for their own boards. We also saw our first Portuguese Man O' War carcasses, so we know what to look for but they didn't give us any trouble.

Jungle Queen

This is the tour boat that passes our dock several times a day on its way up and down the New River. Sometimes passengers will wave and the captain might toot the horn. Around Christmas it was all lit up with Santa's sleigh and reindeer at the top.

A 3-hour tour

A very low bridge (we had to crouch down).

Actually it was more like 4 hours. We took another dinghy ride on the New River. This time we went the long way, which took us into a less developed part of the river and onto the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway). There were a lot more waves on the ICW (with the bigger boats) and Mark and Conrad were "surfing" in the dinghy. There were only a few injuries and no blood, so it was all good.

One of the big cruise ships in the ICW. Conrad's not impressed.

We saw Steven Spielberg's yacht. Now that's a yacht.

Who needs toys?

The boys had fun rolling the cardboard spool from the new refrigeration wiring down the ramp to the dock. Whoever got it the farthest without it falling into the water won. Good times.